The Charm of Oxford by Joseph Wells
page 52 of 102 (50%)
page 52 of 102 (50%)
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misfortune to differ from Laud on the Church Question of the day, and
was prosecuted before the Star Chamber for subornation of perjury, and heavily fined. There seems no doubt that he was guilty; but it was to advocacy of moderation and to his dislike of the king's arbitrary rule that he owed the severity of his punishment. Whatever his moral character, at all events he gave his college a beautiful little chapel, which is often compared to the slightly older one at Wadham; that of Lincoln is much the less spacious of the two, but in its wood carvings, at any rate, it is superior. Lincoln had the ill-fortune, in the nineteenth century, to produce the writer of one of those academic "Memoirs," which reveal, with a scholar's literary style, and also with a scholar's bitterness, the intrigues and quarrels that from time to time arise within college walls. Mark Pattison is likely to be remembered by the world in general because he is said to have been the original of George Eliot's "Mr. Casaubon"; in Oxford he will be remembered not only for the "Memoirs," but also as one who upheld the highest ideal of "Scholarship" when it was likely to be forgotten, and who criticized the neglect of "research." The personal attacks were those of a disappointed man; the criticisms, one-sided as they were, were certainly not unjustified. A university should certainly exist to promote learning, and Mark Pattison, with all his unfairness, certainly helped its cause in Oxford. But a university exists also for the promotion of friendships among young men, and for the development of their social life. Of this duty, Oxford has never been unmindful, and perhaps it is in small colleges like Lincoln that the flowers of friendship best flourish. It is needless to make comparisons, for they flourish |
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